Introduction
Feeling lost in the blocky world of Minecraft, surrounded by endless possibilities? You’re not alone! Deciding what to build first can be overwhelming, especially when considering the potential of automated resource gathering. So many options – mob farms, crop farms, even slime farms – but where do you even begin? Figuring out what farms to prioritize at the start of your Minecraft adventure can be the difference between struggling for survival and thriving in your own little kingdom. Without a proper plan, you might find yourself spending hours manually gathering resources, leaving you little time for exploration, building, or even just… having fun.
This guide cuts through the confusion and walks you through the essential Minecraft farms to prioritize in the early game. We’ll focus on farms that give you a crucial advantage early, helping you gain a solid foothold and accelerate your progress towards bigger and better things. We will discuss the value of each farm, ease of construction, and how to scale them for greater efficiency as you progress. Building these farms early allows you to have an easier time with the rest of the game.
Understanding Your Early Game Minecraft Needs
Minecraft’s early game is all about survival and establishing a basic infrastructure. You’re constantly battling hunger, fending off hostile mobs, and scrambling to gather the resources needed for tools, shelter, and eventually, advancement. Resource scarcity is a defining characteristic of this phase. You have limited access to advanced tools, and every block counts.
Let’s identify the core resources you’ll desperately need in the early game:
- Food: Essential for survival. Without a reliable food source, you’ll be constantly hungry, and your health will suffer. Hunger depletes the ability to run and even do basic tasks like mining.
- Wood: The foundation of nearly everything. You need wood for crafting tables, tools, charcoal, and building basic structures.
- Stone: A step up from wood, stone tools are more durable and efficient. Stone is also crucial for building stronger shelters.
- Iron: The gateway to mid-game. Iron tools are significantly better than stone, and iron armor provides vital protection against mobs.
- Cobblestone: This is useful for the early game. It can be used to make a multitude of things. From stone tools, to walls for your base.
What are your primary goals during this early phase? It’s often focused on:
- Survival: Staying alive is the number one priority.
- Establishing a Safe Base: A secure shelter to protect you from mobs at night.
- Upgrading Tools and Armor: Moving from wood to stone to iron for increased efficiency and protection.
- Exploring the World: Discovering new biomes and resources.
- Preparing for the Nether: Gathering resources and building a Nether portal.
The farms we will discuss will allow you to conquer these early-game challenges and progress beyond them to much greater heights.
Recommended Farms to Build FIRST in Minecraft (with justifications)
Let’s jump into the specific farms you should prioritize building in your early Minecraft world. Each farm will be discussed in terms of the resource produced, why it’s important, ease of construction and potential for scalability.
Farm A Simple Wheat Farm
Resource Produced: Wheat (which can be turned into bread, cake, or traded with villagers.)
Why it’s important EARLY: Food is absolutely vital for survival. Bread, crafted from wheat, provides a decent amount of saturation, which means you won’t get hungry as quickly. Having a reliable source of wheat will let you explore further, mine longer, and generally be more productive. It allows you to focus on more important tasks.
Ease of Construction: Very easy. You just need to hoe some dirt, plant wheat seeds, and provide a water source nearby. Finding the initial seeds might require breaking some tall grass, but that is often abundant. The materials are incredibly easy to obtain, requiring wood and the willingness to break some grass.
Scalability: Highly scalable. You can easily expand your wheat farm by adding more rows and columns. Using bone meal (crafted from bones, obtained by killing skeletons) can speed up the growth process significantly.
Farm An Automated Chicken Farm
Resource Produced: Cooked Chicken and Feathers.
Why it’s important EARLY: Cooked Chicken provides a good source of food and health. Feathers are necessary for arrows, which are important for combat.
Ease of Construction: Requires access to hoppers, chests, lava and chickens. Place hoppers so the chickens and cooked chicken will automatically be put into a chest.
Scalability: Very scalable. Simply add more chickens to get more output.
Farm A Basic Cobblestone Generator
Resource Produced: Cobblestone
Why it’s important EARLY: Cobblestone is a staple building block and a necessary material for furnaces and stone tools. A cobblestone generator provides a reliable and renewable source of this essential resource. You won’t have to dig as much, leading to less time digging and more time planning.
Ease of Construction: Extremely simple. It involves creating a specific pattern where water flows into lava, creating cobblestone. The design is easily found online.
Scalability: Limited scalability in its basic form, but you can automate the breaking and collection of the cobblestone with more advanced mechanisms later on using slime blocks, observers, pistons and other redstone components.
Farm A Simple Tree Farm (Manual or Semi-Automatic)
Resource Produced: Wood logs.
Why it’s important EARLY: While you can obtain wood by chopping down trees in the wild, a tree farm provides a controlled and renewable source. This is especially useful if you’re building a large structure or using a lot of wood for charcoal. The renewable nature of this farm makes it a great investment for early game.
Ease of Construction: Relatively easy. Simply plant saplings in a designated area with sufficient light. You can either manually chop down the trees as they grow or create a semi-automatic farm using pistons to push the trees down and hoppers to collect the logs.
Scalability: Very scalable. You can expand the farm by planting more saplings or create more efficient automatic designs as you progress. Using bone meal can accelerate the growth process.
Farm A Carrot/Potato Farm
Resource Produced: Carrots/Potatoes (Food)
Why it’s important EARLY: Carrots and Potatoes are a great, and abundant food source to have in the early game.
Ease of Construction: Build just like a wheat farm.
Scalability: Build a larger farm to get more resources.
Alternative/Niche Farms (Optional)
While the above farms provide the most immediate benefits in the early game, there are other farms you might consider depending on your specific needs and play style.
- A Very Simple Mob Spawner Farm (If near a Dungeon): If you happen to find a dungeon with a mob spawner, you can create a simple mob farm for experience and resources like bones, rotten flesh, and string. However, this is highly dependent on finding a suitable spawner and may not be a priority for all players. This is not as essential as the other farms mentioned, but still can be very useful.
- A Small Sugar Cane Farm: Sugar cane is needed for paper, which is used for crafting books and maps. While not essential for survival, having a small sugar cane farm can be helpful for exploration and documentation.
The reason why these farms were placed in the alternative section is that they may not be useful in all seeds, playthroughs, or gamemodes.
Tips and Tricks for Efficient Early Minecraft Farming
Here are some tips to maximize the efficiency of your early-game farms:
- Optimal Layouts: For wheat and other crops, use a checkerboard pattern or long rows with water channels running between them to maximize space and water coverage. For tree farms, leave sufficient space between saplings to allow them to grow fully.
- Light it Up: Ensure your farms are well-lit to prevent mobs from spawning inside and interfering with your crops. Torches are your friend!
- Bone Meal is Your Best Friend: If you can get your hands on some bones (from skeletons), craft them into bone meal to accelerate crop growth.
- Automate When Possible: Even basic automation can save you a lot of time. Use hoppers to collect items automatically and consider using redstone to automate tasks like harvesting crops.
- Villager Trades: Villager trades can turn a simple farm into much greater value. For instance, you can trade wheat to a farmer villager and get emeralds.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Early Game Minecraft Farming
- Building Too Big Too Soon: It’s tempting to build massive farms right away, but it’s better to start small and scale up as needed. Building too big too soon can drain your resources and leave you with an unmanageable project.
- Ignoring Resource Gathering: Don’t neglect the importance of gathering the initial resources needed to build your farms. Make sure you have a reliable source of wood, stone, and iron before you start building complex structures.
- Forgetting About Light: Not lighting your farms can lead to mobs spawning and destroying your crops.
- Inefficient Layouts: Poorly designed farms can waste space and reduce efficiency. Plan your layouts carefully.
Conclusion
Building the right farms early in your Minecraft world can significantly improve your survival, progression, and overall enjoyment of the game. By prioritizing food, wood, and basic building materials, you’ll establish a solid foundation for future success. Remember to start small, scale up as needed, and don’t be afraid to experiment with different designs to find what works best for you.
So, get out there, start building, and enjoy the fruits (or wheat, or carrots) of your labor! What are your favorite early-game farms? Leave a comment below and share your tips with other Minecraft players!
